Here is a hint
There is an old story of a philosophy examination that had but one question, which asked
- Is this a question?
To which a student answered, "If it is, then this is an answer", gaining top marks.
And that it what the words in the title are, askings (i.e. questions) and answers, in Old English.
Both are still with us, although asking (as a noun) only survives in fossilised form in expressions such as, 'Yours for the asking', having been displaced by question in the Middle English period.
Answer as a noun is a fairly common word, but its spelling has changed a lot and in a startlingly varied manner: the OED notes 60+ spellings and 20+ more in Scots dialect. Here are a handful of interesting ones, to give you a flavour.
ansfor, hanswer, ansquere, nonswarre, unswere, answeere, awnsweare.
Both have interesting etymologies. Asking is thought to come from a Proto Indo-European (PIE) base *ais-, "want" or "wish for" and has relatives in a number of Germanic languages,
Answer has a rather surprising origin. The OE form andswaru is made up of the elements and-, "against" and swaru, "swearing", in the sense of an solemn oath, so the original meaning was an against-swearing. It's thought this referred to a sort of binding affirmation of not being guilty of a charge brought against you, "I do solemnly swear it wasn't me" kind of thing, but then widened its meaning to include a response to a question of any sort. The Middle English Compendium gives an example from 1175 that clearly has the modern meaning
Sannte Peterr ȝaff himm þuss Anndswere onnȝæn & seȝȝde
which Gemini translates as, "Saint Peter gave him thus [an] answer back and said:"
AH-skung-ah ahnd AND-swah-rah
Comments
New comment
PS forgot to mention the silent "w'' in answer, a fossilised relic that helps us deduce the word's origins, but which we no longer pronounce, because "ahn-swer" is just harder to say than "ahnsa".